I have a basic web app in place: it has a registration page, a sign in page, and a home page for users to upload some photos. It is written in ruby on rails and hosted using heroku.
I want to basically make a simple iphone application that will have the same functionality. Basically, I want to allow users to register, sign up & take a picture with their phone. That is it.
I was wondering what the best way is to go about doing this. I.e. I want to make sure that when a user registers through the iphone, the user is added to the database that I have for my web app. When they sign in, their credentials are checked through my web app DB. When they upload photos, this is visible when they go to their home page on the web app.
Any ideas on what steps I could take to make this happen? I only very recently started writing web apps, and I am newer still to iPhone app development, so I would appreciate some tips on how to get started.
I'm looking at: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/iPhone/Conceptual/iPhone101/Articles/01_CreatingProject.html
and also, I am looking at the Stanford iPhone app lectures.
Thanks a lot!
Watch and work though the Stanford lectures before you do anything else. You can still get the sample code and homework online if you want too. They are amazingly good.
In regard to your question, you need to make an 'API' on your web server (it doesn't have to be public - just don't tell anyone about it or protect it in a more modern fashion) that has register, sign up and upload capabilities. Once you get skilled in iPhone development, you will be able to send and receive data from this API, and display the relevant stuff on screen.